Friday, August 5, 2011

Deva Puja Paddhathi

The pancharathra is the source for the puja for prathimas. Jagad Guru Sri Madhvacharya in his work Tantrasara sangraha has given detailed guidelines in 442 shlokas, for performance of devapuja by individuals dailly at home as well as the procedure for installing a deity in a temple & its puja procedure. Sri Jayatheertha (Teekacharya) has in a brief 126 shlokas of his work "PADHYAMALA" described the procedure for devapuja with emphasis on our mental attitude & intense involvement in the ritual. It is the duty for everyone to perform devapuja dailly without fail. Devapuja consists of two types. One is puja for a Prathima (Idol) with the parivara devathas (to whom proper importance according to the taratamya (gradations) in the hierarchy of devathas as elucidated by Sri Madhva has to be accorded) which requires very great sanctity to the observed & elaborate procedure. The other is Saligrama pooja. The deva puja is being performed with vedic manthras. It has to be realized that during the earlier yugas, all men were able to learn all the vedas & remember them, but during course of time human beings began losing their earlier mental capacities & hence our sages ordained that each family should master atleast one veda. Even this had become beyond the capacity of man & hence during the lifetime of man, 40 rituals were ordained to be performed from birth to death. The vedic manthras had been voven into these rituals, so that, it would be possible for one to chant these manthras (in reality atleast hear these manthras chanted) during one's lifetime. Amongst these manthras, the most important & potent manthras are included in the Sandhyavandanam & the Deva puja. It is therefore essential that brahmacharis & grahasthas do these two important rituals regularly.